Anti-ICE Protests Have Come to Roblox

"I think anyone dismissing this is severely underestimating the intelligence of our nation's youth, and denying them a chance to be what they are: citizens."

An example of the protests in Roblox. Credit: Alyssa Mercante, Rolling Stone

This past election was the first time I had conversations with my children about politics. With my eight-year-old, she asked questions about the impact Trump might have on her classmates. With my five-year-old, it was explaining what a protest is, and why Dad is honking his horn at one side of the street and not the other. In our house, if my kids ask a question, I’m going to do my best to give an honest answer back.*

*Scroll to the bottom for one exception.

While this hasn’t come up with my kids (yet), it’s not shocking to learn today’s contentious politics are bleeding into the virtual spaces occupied by children. It used to be the case that “social media/the internet wasn’t real life” but it’s no longer true.

It’s all connected.

Last week, reporter Taylor Lorenz first wrote about anti-ICE protests in Roblox, a platform with more than 100 million monthly users, largely children and young people.

These protests were happening in the popular role-playing Roblox game Brookhaven. While Dress to Impress fever has broken in my household, Brookhaven fever has not, because Brookhaven is a place where my children can play out storytelling fantasies. Without spending a dime, you can “be” a parent, a child, a firefighter—or even a cop.

Brookhaven has been a staple of Roblox since April 2020. Are you shocked to discover a social space on a social platform exploded as children were exclusively at home, as everyone entered COVID lockdowns? As of this writing, Brookhaven remains the second most popular experience on Roblox, right behind Grow a Garden, the game that’s been getting endless headlines recently for breaking all sorts of Roblox records.

Per Lorenz’s piece on the protests in Brookhaven:

There have been Roblox players dressed as ICE agents that barged into other player’s houses. They have "arrested" a user hiding in his kitchen and chased down another player while conducting “Border Patrol” surveillance. Roblox ICE agents hunted down a young player in his Roblox home, banging his door down.

Tensions reached a boiling point, and last week — as thousands tookto the streets to protest ICE in the offline world — Roblox players protested within the game, battling cops, breaking down barricades, waving Mexican flags, and facing off across a line of players dressed in police SWAT gear.

Despite being primarily a children’s game, Roblox has evolved into a sort of emergent civic theatre for kids online. The game is now where thousands of children go to process major world news events through highly intricate role play. These simulations are how many young people experience news events, representing a shift towards more participatory forms of media.

I have not, personally, had much luck experiencing these protests, but you are randomly assigned to a Brookhaven server when you launch the game, so it’s a dice roll. I tasked my eight-year-old with reporting back if she saw anything—but no luck. (I also didn’t hear any reports from parents when I tried some outreach via social media.)

Other folks, however, have had better luck, including reporter Alyssa Mercante, who also spent time amidst the Roblox protests for a great story that was recently published in Rolling Stone, where she witnessed “a small anti-ICE protest start to build organically” and a “half dozen players wearing Mexican flags on their backs and green, white, and red outfits stood near a barricade and held signs that read ‘STOP SEPARATING FAMILIES,’ ‘My dad works harder than the president,’ and ‘F ICE.’”

“I had seen several TikToks that showcased some of the larger protests,” said Mercante in an interview with Crossplay, “but I couldn't get in touch with any of those organizers (they had posted their Roblox usernames on TikTok and encouraged people to join future protests), so I just jumped into the game and was placed in a random server. It drops you in the center of the town of Brookhaven, and before I knew it, a small protest had started.”

(Like my kids, Mercante plays Dress to Impress “regularly,” but told me that’s the majority of her Roblox experience. In Brookhaven, she accidentally made herself a cop.)

This lines up with my own experience. You could, in theory, find a protest by joining a friend who was already at one. In Brookhaven and other Roblox games, you then join the same server your friends are in. But Brookhaven does not have a “protest server.”

You also don’t see very much if you search terms like “Trump” or “immigration:”

Mercante was handed a sign they could fill in with their own text, before joining others at a “club,” where they’d staged part of the protest. It was around this time that things started to pop off, as digital cop cars, complete with player digital cops, arrived on the scene. (In Brookhaven, players can summon vehicles, firearms, and other items.)

“It was a really bizarre mix of serious sentiment and kids just wasting time/play-acting,” said Mercante. “The signs (which read ‘VIVA MEXICO,’ ‘no one is illegal on stolen land,’ and ‘my father does more work than the president’ and the Mexican patriotism seemed really genuine. Then it was also clear that there were kids in there who weren't looking to protest, but to just play in Brookhaven, and still others who joined the protests just to goof off.”

Brookhaven is sprawling, not unlike the city of Los Angeles. When I was in LA for work recently, the protests were blocks away because I was downtown. But for 99% of people who live in LA, they experienced the protests the same way you did: on television.

“I could go on for hours about how dangerous unfettered access to the internet is for both young folks and impressionable people, but I think what's happening in Roblox is a nice salve for my burning anxiety. Kids are trying to process something that is either directly affecting them (ICE can and has targeted elementary schools, taken away caregivers, and even deported children), or that they're seeing on TikTok or other social media sites.”

Roblox has a filtered chatroom, i.e. there are no moderators but it’s trying to catch bad behavior. Chatrooms in Roblox are often pretty quiet, in my experience, though that might be filtered by having children who are on the younger side of things.

(I have chat interactions disabled for both kids. This is mostly my own observations.)

“The chats itself was pretty quiet,” said Mercante, “most players seemed to be communicating via signs and whatever actions they were taking in-game.”

This is not the first time politics and protest have hit Roblox. This is a generation growing up with and alongside online social spaces being as ubiquitous, and perhaps more important, than a school playground. It might seem awkward, or even cringe, to watch young people figure out how to express themselves via Roblox, but it’s normal.

“I could go on for hours about how dangerous unfettered access to the internet is for both young folks and impressionable people,” said Mercante, “but I think what's happening in Roblox is a nice salve for my burning anxiety. Kids are trying to process something that is either directly affecting them (ICE can and has targeted elementary schools, taken away caregivers, and even deported children), or that they're seeing on TikTok or other social media sites. Maybe they're trying to navigate a situation that feels important and historical, but one they might not fully grasp; or maybe they're looking for answers regarding their own political beliefs or thoughts.”

The protests against the Trump administration happening in our (physical) neighborhood have been growing, to the point that my wife and I have talked about bringing our kids to a protest sometime. What do you put on a protest sign for a five-year-old? How do you avoid using them solely as a political prop when they’re at an age where they’re more concerned about whether they’re getting one or two cookies?

But like I said, in our house, we meet you where you are. Maybe that’s at a protest. Hell, maybe that’s a protest that happens in Roblox, not down the street. Who knows?

“I think anyone dismissing this is severely underestimating the intelligence of our nation's youth,” said Mercante, “and denying them a chance to be what they are: citizens.”

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Also:

• We almost brought our kids to a local Black Lives Matter protest, but we were still spooked about COVID infections, so my mom ended up watching the kids.

• In general, Roblox play is down in our household. I’ve seen my oldest playing it less and less, instead preferring pure videos. I can’t tell if that’s an improvement.

• OK, I’ll be honest and admit I’ve dodged one honest answer: Dad, where do babies come from? This came up because a relative is now pregnant due to IVF, which I could explain as “doctors and shots.” But my eight-year-old countered with a follow-up: “Is that where I came from?” I managed to filibuster a real answer, but I owe her one. Anyone have experience on this with a kid at that age?